"General Pierce wrote yesterday to say he wished to meet Mr.
Hawthorne in Boston on Wednesday, and go from thence on their way.
"Mr. Hawthorne is much weaker. I find, than he has been before at
any time, and I shall go down with him, having a great many things
to do in Boston; but I am sure he is not fit to be left by himself,
for his steps are so uncertain, and his eyes are very uncertain too.
Dear Mr. Fields, I am very anxious about him, and I write now to say
that he absolutely refuses to see a physician officially, and so I
wish to know whether Dr. Holmes could not see him in some ingenious
way on Wednesday as a friend; but with his experienced, acute
observation, to look at him also as a physician, to note how he is
and what he judges of him comparatively since he last saw him. It
almost deprives me of my wits to see him growing weaker with no aid.
He seems quite bilious, and has a restlessness that is infinite. His
look is more distressed and harassed than before; and he has so
little rest, that he is getting worn out. I hope immensely in regard
of this sauntering journey with General Pierce.
"I feel as if I ought not to speak to you of anything when you are
so busy and weary and bereaved. But yet in such a sad emergency as
this, I am sure your generous, kind heart will not refuse me any
help you can render.... I wish Dr. Holmes would feel his pulse; I do
not know how to judge of it, but it seems to me irregular."
His friend, Dr. O.W. Holmes, in compliance with Mrs. Hawthorne's desire,
expressed in this letter to me, saw the invalid, and thus describes his
appearance in an article full of tenderness and feeling which was
published in the "Atlantic Monthly" for July, 1864:--
"Late in the afternoon of the day before he left Boston on his last
journey I called upon him at the hotel where he was staying. He had
gone out but a moment before. Looking along the street, I saw a form
at some distance in advance which could only be his,--but how
changed from his former port and figure! There was no mistaking the
long iron-gray locks, the carriage of the head, and the general look
of the natural outlines and movement; but he seemed to have shrunken
in all his dimensions, and faltered along with an uncertain, feeble
step, as if every movement were an effort. I joined him, and we
walked together half an hour, during which time I learned so much
of his state of mind and body as could be got at without worrying
him with suggestive questions,--my object being to form an opinion
of his condition, as I had been requested to do, and to give him
some hints that might be useful to him on his journey.
"His aspect, medically considered, was very unfavorable. There were
persistent local symptoms, referred especially to the
stomach,--'boring pain,' distension, difficult digestion, with great
wasting of flesh and strength. He was very gentle, very willing to
answer questions, very docile to such counsel as I offered him, but
evidently had no hope of recovering his health. He spoke as if his
work were done, and he should write no more.
"With all his obvious depression, there was no failing noticeable in
his conversational powers. There was the same backwardness and
hesitancy which in his best days it was hard for him to overcome, so
that talking with him was almost like love-making, and his shy,
beautiful soul had to be wooed from its bashful prudency like an
unschooled maiden. The calm despondency with which he spoke about
himself confirmed the unfavorable opinion suggested by his look and
history."
I saw Hawthorne alive, for the last time, the day he started on this his
last mortal journey. His speech and his gait indicated severe illness,
and I had great misgivings about the jaunt he was proposing to take so
early in the season. His tones were more subdued than ever, and he
scarcely spoke above a whisper. He was very affectionate in parting, and
I followed him to the door, looking after him as he went up School
Street. I noticed that he faltered from weakness, and I should have
taken my hat and joined him to offer my arm, but I knew he did not wish
to _seem_ ill, and I feared he might be troubled at my anxiety. Fearing
to disturb him, I followed him with my eyes only, and watched him till
he turned the corner and passed out of sight.
On the morning of the 19th of May, 1864, a telegram, signed by Franklin
Pierce, stunned us all. It announced the death of Hawthorne. In the
afternoon of the same day came this letter to me:--
"Pemigewasset House, Plymouth, N.H., Thursday morning, 5 o'clock
"My Dear Sir,--The telegraph has communicated to you the fact of our
dear friend Hawthorne's death. My friend Colonel Hibbard, who bears
this note, was a friend of H----, and will tell you more than I am
able to write.
"I enclose herewith a note which I commenced last evening to dear
Mrs. Hawthorne. O, how will she bear this shock! Dear mother--dear
children--
"When I met Hawthorne in Boston a week ago, it was apparent that he
was much more feeble and more seriously diseased than I had supposed
him to be. We came from Centre Harbor yesterday afternoon, and I
thought he was on the whole brighter than he was the day before.
Through the week he had been inclined to somnolency during the day,
but restless at night. He retired last night soon after nine
o'clock, and soon fell into a quiet slumber. In less than half an
hour changed his position, but continued to sleep. I left the door
open between his bedroom and mine,--our beds being opposite to each
other,--and was asleep myself before eleven o'clock. The light
continued to burn in my room. At two o'clock, I went to H----'s
bedside; he was apparently in a sound sleep, and I did not place my
hand upon him. At four o'clock I went into his room again, and, as
his position was unchanged, I placed my hand upon him and found that
life was extinct. I sent, however, immediately for a physician, and
called Judge Bell and Colonel Hibbard, who occupied rooms upon the
same floor and near me. He lies upon his side, his position so
perfectly natural and easy, his eyes closed, that it is difficult to
realize, while looking upon his noble face, that this is death. He
must have passed from natural slumber to that from which there is no
waking without the slightest movement.
"I cannot write to dear Mrs. Hawthorne, and you must exercise your
judgment with regard to sending this and the unfinished note,
enclosed, to her.
"Your friend,
"FRANKLIN PIERCE."
Hawthorne's lifelong desire that the end might be a sudden one was
gratified. Often and often he has said to me, "What a blessing to go
quickly!" So the same swift angel that came as a messenger to Allston,
Irving, Prescott, Macaulay, Thackeray, and Dickens was commissioned to
touch his forehead, also, and beckon him away.
The room in which death fell upon him,
"Like a shadow thrown
Softly and lightly from a passing cloud,"
looks toward the east; and standing in it, as I have frequently done,
since he passed out silently into the skies, it is easy to imagine the
scene on that spring morning which President Pierce so feelingly
describes in his letter.
On the 24th of May we carried Hawthorne through the blossoming orchards
of Concord, and laid him down under a group of pines, on a hillside,
overlooking historic fields. All the way from the village church to the
grave the birds kept up a perpetual melody. The sun shone brightly, and
the air was sweet and pleasant, as if death had never entered the world.
Longfellow and Emerson, Channing and Hoar, Agassiz and Lowell, Greene
and Whipple, Alcott and Clarke, Holmes and Hillard, and other friends
whom he loved, walked slowly by his side that beautiful spring morning.
The companion of his youth and his manhood, for whom he would willingly,
at any time, have given up his own life, Franklin Pierce, was there
among the rest, and scattered flowers into the grave. The unfinished
Romance, which had cost him so much anxiety, the last literary work on
which he had ever been engaged, was laid on his coffin.
"Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power,
And the lost clew regain?
The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower
Unfinished must remain."
Longfellow's beautiful poem will always be associated with the memory of
Hawthorne, and most fitting was it that his fellow-student, whom he so
loved and honored, should sing his requiem.